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Can seemingly innocuous activities such as playing video games, watching movies, or binging on TV shows affect your ways to see the world or how you behave? Could it affect social norms? Is one able to “turn one’s brain off”, and not be affected beyond the most superficial level, by what one is consuming? Much has been written about violence in the media and how it might affect people’s behavior, and indeed, positive correlations with violence can be found1. But beyond these oft-discussed subject, the question is: what role does mass media and pop culture play in normalization? And, more related to this series of articles, what is the relationship between pop culture, militarism/militarization, and normalization? This article will attempt to approximate us to an answer..

Hillary Clinton spent years vowing to defend the rights of children worldwide, but under her leadership the State Department played a central role in allowing rebel forces in southern Sudan to use child soldiers in defiance of a 2008 law forbidding it, reports Nick Turse at The Intercept.

The law is called the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, or CSPA, and after South Sudan’s independence, in 2011 the White House issued annual waivers that kept taxpayer dollars flowing its way despite its use of child soldiers.

Former director acknowledges Aegis Defence Services may have recruited former child fighters in Sierra Leone

A former senior director at a British firm says that it employed mercenaries from Sierra Leone to work in Iraq because they were cheaper than Europeans and did not check if they were former child soldiers.

James Ellery, who was a director of Aegis Defence Services between 2005 and 2015, said that contractors had a “duty” to recruit from countries such as Sierra Leone, “where there’s high unemployment and a decent workforce”, in order to reduce costs for the US presence in Iraq.

The year 2014 was a “devastating” one for children in armed conflicts, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

Worldwide, 230 million children lived in countries affected by armed conflicts; 15 million were caught up in violent conflicts in countries such as the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan; hundreds were kidnapped; and tens of thousands were recruited or used by government forces and armed groups.

The recruitment and use of children by armed groups is one of “six grave violations” against children identified by the United Nations Security Council. Yet the practice is pervasive, despite various legal instruments that aim to protect the rights of children in conflict.

Street children said to be among those abused in third case of alleged sex abuse involving peacekeepers deployed in CAR.

The United Nations peacekeeping contingent serving in the Central African Republic are accused of sexually abusing street children in Bangui, a UN spokesman has said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said the latest incident was the third case of alleged child sexual abuse involving peacekeepers in the CAR to have surfaced in recent months.

"If the allegations are substantiated, this would constitute a grave violation of UN principles and of the code of conduct of peacekeepers," Dujarric said on Tuesday.

The UN mission in Bangui has notified the troop-contributing country of the new allegations and has opened an investigation, Dujarric said.

The country of origin was not identified, but a UN official said it was an African contingent.

A former Shreveporter who left a troubled family here to serve as a combat medic in Iraq, and who later served as a new doctor combating Ebola in west Africa, will speak in his home town later this week and sign copies of his new book.

"My mom was in prison most of my life, and my sister did time," says Antonio Webb, 32, who now is in his residency as an orthopedic surgeon in San Antonio, Texas. He grew up in the Allendale, Queensborough and Meadows neighborhood off Jewella Avenue.

"My dad did the best he could as a single parent to keep us isolated from what was going on. I was lucky in that I left Shreveport at an early age, 17, after I graduated from high school. If I'd have stayed in Shreveport there would have been a different outcome."

The number of child soldiers in the Central African Republic (CAR) has more than doubled – and possibly quadrupled – since sectarian conflict erupted last year, putting them at risk of long-term psychological damage, Save the Children warns.

An estimated 6,000 to 10,000 boys and girls are currently members of armed groups, compared with around 2,500 at the beginning of the crisis, according to the charity.

Trigger warning: this video includes footage of people talking about abuse against children, murder and abduction.

Moving on – Surviving Lord Resistance Army is an intimate and honest documentary on what it means for children and youth to be forced into cruel situations. The documentary demonstrates the need for children to process their experiences, to find a way of living and their deep wish to contribute to a better society and future for all.

Despite international bans, more than 250,000 children fight as soldiers in 86 countries across the globe, almost half of them in Africa. Two new studies explored how these children adjust after they return to their homes. Key to successful adaptation, the studies found, was the characteristics of the communities to which the children returned.

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Sowing Seeds

Through articles, images, survey data and interviews, Sowing Seeds: The Militarisation of Youth and How to Counter It documents the seeds of war that are planted in the minds of young people in many different countries. However, it also explores the seeds of resistance to this militarisation that are being sown resiliently and creatively by numerous people. READ MORE